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19 March 2006

A column published in the ‘"Sunday Star-Times"

MERCY, MERCY, MERCY

One of the great fantasies of men my age – quite apart from being trapped in a lift with Paris Hilton – is to plot and execute the perfect crime.

There is something both childlike and childish in the contemplation – a nostalgic nod to all playground pirates of yesteryear and every ‘60s TV caper that featured Roger Moore or Robert Wagner. Matinee burglars who spent most of their time sunning themselves on the Riviera and bedding blonde delectables.

By middle-age, the only crimes we contemplate involve flogging the office pen or poisoning the neighbourhood cat. Petty acts of defiance in an insane age.

Although we’re too timid to do anything really serious. No daylight kidnappings, stripping of marine resources or contract killings of street rivals. We leave that sort of stuff to the migrants. And there have been some very bad recent arrivals indeed.
Most of them end up getting caught. Arraigned, found guilty, imprisoned and then served with a deportation order by the Minister of Immigration. The rest of the country breathes a collective sigh of relief – that’s one less crim in the country who can’t speak English, we think.

Well, think again. Because New Zealand has an official handwringing organisation – the Deportation Review Tribunal – determined to keep good numbers of them here. And it has the power to do so. It is particularly impressed by low-lifes with sob stories about the family who will miss them if they go. Particularly Dads with dicky hearts.

Chinese kidnapper Bo Fan, a case in point. The tribunal overturned his deportation order and has allowed him to stay in New Zealand after serving a three year prison term. He discovered God while he was there too. Ah yes - if a broken home used to the stock excuse for criminal mercy, it now appears religion is the new one.

Needless to say this deportation review tribunal consists entirely of liberal, middle-class women. In fact, no male or conservative (usually the same thing) has served on the tribunal for the last four years. It consists of a female judge and two colleagues appointed by the Minister of Justice. And their sole purpose, it seems, is to frustrate the Minister of Immigration.
Sorry – ministers of immigration. Plural. In the past four years they’ve overridden deportation decisions by ministers Dalziel, Swain and Cunliffe. Before Dalziel, minister Tuaraki Delamere was so incensed with their decisions he actually dismissed the entire tribunal in 1999. To no avail.

Indeed a cursory reading of the tribunal’s judgements since 1999 shows that the tribunal has overruled deportation orders on at least sixteen separate occasions. Asian crims especially. There’s just something all gooey about an Asian getting God.

Crimes of violence also do good business. You can leave off a minor conviction on your PR application or shift from Whangarei to Auckland and that will get you sent home. But if you’re Vietnamese, stab someone in a pub and serve time … you’re exactly the kind of person the tribunal wants to stay.

And telling porkies isn’t necessarily a no-no. Glenn and Katerina Bacon got to stay despite lying repeatedly to authorities, faking their immigration documents and then separating once they were here.

So too an Indian rapist who got four years for raping an 18 year old. He had been a busy boy – having two children to different mothers (one a Cook Islander and one a Sikh) and raping his employee since arriving in New Zealand 1997. But those kids saved him. The tribunal said that if their scumbag dad was sent home to India then they would unduly suffer. Uh-huh.

Presumably like Jill Tito’s kid would suffer if she was sent to prison.

So who’s on the Deportation Review Tribunal? Lawyer Margaret Lee is the current chairperson aided by two lay people – Claire Duncan and Raewyn Weller. Never heard of them? No, neither has anyone else. But they have more powers than an elected cabinet minister exercising the powers of Crown. Frightening.

But then women in authority with unfettered power is the Kiwi way. And the situation is not destined to improve anytime soon.
The brutal fact is that women are achieving in this country, and that men are not. Which is forcing some fascinating socio-sexual changes. The primary, according to Department of Labour demographer Paul Callister, being that women are now “marrying down”.

The man drought – particularly in the 20-to-49 age group – has had the effect of single women searching out any male with a pulse in an attempt to both copulate and breed. Of course this is good for us males in that age group, because we are end up with women who are more able and better looking than we deserve.

But it may also give us the pointer as to why the Deportation Review Tribunal is doing what it is doing. Dominated by women, it is clearly seeking to add to the available male pool. And 24 year old Bo Fan is exactly in that demographic that women are seeking. Not only is he young, but he has supportive parents and his recent adherence to Christianity bodes well for a stable home.

If we look at the tribunal not so much as a quasi-judicial body but as a surrogate dating agency, then most of their recent liberalism can be explained. Sisters really are doing it for themselves.

Which might also explain Ahmed Zhaoui. Good-looking, artistic, house-trained by the Dominicans and with proven progeny. At which point the function of all these refugee and deportation tribunals becomes clear. To match-make for desperate Kiwi women. If they’d offered that explanation from day one, we would be more tolerant of their decisions.

ENDS